All Forum Posts by: Jakob Claret

My girlfriend and I have just started corporate jobs at high salaries and would like to be a part of the FIRE movement.

We've been interviewing financial advisors and all the ones we've interviewed look down upon real estate as a viable long-term investment strategy and choose to promote stocks and bonds instead.

Can anyone recommend a good financial advisor or financial services company in Houston that is pro real estate?

Thank you!

Hi BP Community!

My girlfriend and I are looking for an apartment to live in for the next year while we save up for our first rental property to househack. 

We understand that you typically use a realtor to buy and sell personal and investment property, but were wondering if it's advisable to use a realtor to find an apartment for the next year.

If so, how do we go about paying or compensating the realtor since they aren't exactly closing on a deal?

We could probably do the search ourselves but we aren't currently in the area, and we will be setting up for our new jobs so it would certainly take the burden off of our backs if we could hire some help.

Thanks!

Jakob

Thanks Daniel!

I'm looking to get started in Real Estate and Bigger Pockets recommends getting a business checking account for each property you have in order to keep the accounting nice and clean.

When I went to sign up for said account it asked me what my business entity is, and I don't have one.

I've been told it's generally not a good idea to start an LLC before you've actually started investing so would it be wrong to just use my second general checking account as my 'business account' until I gain traction?

I'd still technically be separating the finances since I don't use that account for anything, and I'm not sure what benefit I would get from a business account other than to make it easier to connect to QuickBooks which I can't afford at the moment anyways.

Thanks!

I'm a college student looking to close my first deal before I graduate in December. I'm getting a loan from a family member for the 20% down payment and will use a non-conventional lender for the other 80%. My plan was to refinance it with a lower interest loan once acquired so I can pull out money to pay off my family member.

I know there will be a seasoning period and I will have to wait until I have enough equity in the property, but what I'm more worried about is qualifying for the loan. I still likely won't have any earned income other than the cash flow from the property. Is that going to be an issue or will a bank like Wells Fargo or Chase be okay with refinancing as long as I can prove I have tenants paying off the mortgage?

Also, is there any other giant pitfall that I'm missing here?

Thanks!

I'm looking around in Houston and 2-4 unit properties go anywhere from about half a million to $1.5M depending on rehab needs and property size. 

From what it sounds like, I definitely need a co-signer or to just wholesale the deal and put it towards my savings for my own property.

I do have job offers in the $70-$120k range (engineering degree), but even then I would still need at least 6 months of living well below my means to save up enough for a down payment, closing costs, and reserves and would probably need to wait longer anyways to get approved for the loan since they usually want to see at least a year of stable income, right?

@Michael Plante mentioned getting commercial property since they would value it as a business and not me as a lendee. That still would require a higher down payment which I would still need a third party to provide me with the funding. 

I suppose if I could get seller financing I could potentially skip that hurdle altogether though. How often in your experience have you been able to get sellers to finance?

I'm a college student about to graduate, and I'm looking to buy a multifamily property rental or house hack. 

I'd like to get preapproved for a loan, but at the moment I have no job or stable income. I've got a mid 5 figure stock and bond investment portfolio, but I don't know if I should bother getting a hard credit pull for preapproval since lenders care more about income than savings.

Should I still go forward with the preapproval process or should I just try to get a job with stable income and help other investors wholesale while I gather enough funds?

Hey Everyone!

I hope you all had an amazing labor day weekend! 

I am a new real estate investor in the Houston area and I was wondering where to find bank owned real estate in Houston, Texas? Are there still auctions on the courthouse steps or is it a website now? 

Your feedback is much appreciated.

-Jakob